by Jilly Cooper
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.’
‘This rake is not going to be left behind,’ mocked Rannaldini, putting his arm through hers to lead her over the bridge.
‘You are getting cold. The Russians may have left Prague, but icy wind still blow straight from Moscow.’
Sixties music was belching out of a loud speaker. The people pouring over the bridge, as if to repudiate any accusation of Communist drabness, wore brilliant collars: violet, turquoise, shocking pink, but their bulky anoraks and strap-under-trousers looked very out of date.
As the mist thinned in the sunshine, the river seemed to be strewn with cobwebs. The statues, on the other hand, were covered in real, frozen cobwebs, which glittered on the sad, strong Slav face of Christ on the cross like a veil of tears.
‘I theenk of Prague as Sleeping Beauty that’s only just awaked. Two sleeping beauties,’ Rannaldini turned and kissed Helen’s lips, his dark glasses only an extension of his black impenetrable eyes. ‘And last night you awake.
‘There’s St Christopher.’ Moving on, he pointed to more statues. ‘And St Cyril and St Barbara, patron saint of miners. Kafka wrote story about bridge, describing her beautiful hands. The statues ’ave to be restored and rebuilt every year.’
‘Like a face lift,’ said Helen.
‘You will never need one,’ Rannaldini touched her cheek, ‘You have eternal youth.’
They had reached the centre of the bridge. Upstream the river still steamed like a race horse. Downstream it was as smooth and green as crème de men the with a striped pink pleasure launch chugging towards them, and cafés with their umbrellas down on the bank.
‘Now we come to Prague’s most famous saint, St John of Nepomuk,’ said Rannaldini, ‘who was the Queen’s confessor in fourteenth century. Her husband, King Wenceslas IV, was a thug. The story about him setting out in snow with page boy, wine and pine logs to cheer up some peasant, ees balderdash.’ Rannaldini’s eyes creased up with malicious laughter. ‘This Wenceslas was insanely jealous of his beautiful wife and torture her confessor to reveal her secrets. When Nepomuk refuse, Wenscelas pull out poor man’s tongue and chuck him in river.
‘But,’ Rannaldini pointed to a brass plaque set into the side of the bridge, showing the unfortunate monk being heaved over the side, ‘where he land, five bright gold stars spring out of river, and hover there until Nepomuk’s dead body was fished out.
‘This is spot where he went in.’ Picking up Helen’s hand, Rannaldini placed it on ajagged gold cross on top of the bridge wall. ‘Over centuries lovers come to touch the cross together,’ Rannaldini spread his big hand over hers, ‘in the hope that their love will last and prosper.’
Burying his face in Helen’s neck, he breathed in the last vestiges of Jolie Madame.
‘Now you know why I breeng you here.’
‘What a beautiful story,’ sighed Helen, glancing back at the plaque, ‘the body of the poor monk is bright gold, too.’
‘That is where people have rubbed his body for luck over the centuries.’ Rannaldini stretched out his hand, idly caressing the upside-down Nepomuk.
The plaque also showed the Queen making her confession to Nepomuk through a grill. Nearby her cruel handsome husband idly stroked an adoring lurcher. But the tension in his body showed how hard he was listening. How often during her first marriage had Helen lurked on landings and outside rooms trying to overhear Rupert making assignations?
‘The King even looks like Rupert,’ she was thinking aloud now. ‘He’s got the same Greek nose and long eyes.’
‘He love his dog more than his wife,’ teased Rannaldini.
‘I nearly cited Rupert’s dog Badger as co-respondent,’ said Helen bitterly.
‘I think you are more in mourning for your first marriage than the second,’ mocked Rannaldini.
‘My first one nearly destroyed me. I can’t go back to that again.’
The mist had almost disappeared. Upstream a flotilla of air balloons hung like teardrops. Artists were setting up easels. A street musician playing ‘Lili Marlene’ on the accordian was tipped with unusual generosity by Rannaldini.
‘We could have done with you in the orchestra last night, my friend.’
‘Thank you, Maestro.’
‘How good you are to everyone,’ sighed Helen.
‘One more saint.’ Rannaldini led Helen beyond the bridge and down some stone steps to the water’s edge on which stood a lone statue of a slim young knight with a lion at his feet and a gold sword glittering in his hand.
‘Now listen carefully,’ Rannaldini paused in front of the statue. ‘St Brunswick save the lion from a cruel and wicked dragon. Consequently the lion became Brunswick’s devoted companion and also the symbol of Prague. Brunswick’s job was to guard the city.’
‘The day the Communist walk in in 1949,’ Rannaldini’s beautiful voice flowed on like the river, ‘Brunswick’s gold sword totally vanish. The legend was that it would only return when Prague was freed. The very night Prague was liberated,’ suddenly Rannaldini seemed to have difficulty speaking, ‘the joyful crowds sweeping over the bridge notice the gold sword was back in place in Brunswick’s hand.’
‘A miracle,’ said Helen shakily.
Rannaldini nodded. Removing his dark glasses he drew Helen into the lichened, blackened arch of the bridge and kissed her.
‘Since Keety leave me I have not been able to put my heart into conducting, let alone composing. Last night, with young inexperienced musicians and singers, we produce performance of a lifetime. Later while you sleep, you look so beautiful, I write my first music in fifteen years. I dedicate it to you. You have freed my inspiration and given me back my gold sword so I can protect you.’
‘Oh Rannaldini.’ Tears were glittering on Helen’s face like frozen cobwebs. ‘That’s the dearest thing anyone’s ever told me.’
‘Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart
Could have recovered greenness?’ murmured Rannaldini, remembering the open poetry book on the table at the Old Rectory.
‘That’s my favourite poem,’ said Helen in amazement.
Midges were dancing like mist shadows against the bridge wall. Tourists drifting by gazed down on the beautiful couple.
‘I must go.’ Reluctantly Rannaldini tore himself away. ‘Tonight I will conduct Missa just for you, my darling.’
If he had asked her to follow him to the end of the world, let alone Berlin, Helen would have gone.
As they drove back to the hotel, Rannaldini told Helen he was spending Christmas in his house in Tuscany with his children and two of his ex-wives.
“Ow about you?’ he asked.
‘I shall be staying with Rupert and Taggie and my children,’ said Helen, showing off how well she, too, got on with her ex.
The temperature dropped perceptibly.
‘No doubt you weel have the pleasure of meeting my third wife, Keety and her husband Lysander, Rupert’s leetle catamite.’
Helen looked startled.
‘I’ve always thought Rupert and Billy, his best friend, were unnaturally close, but Rupert’s always been aggressively heterosexual.’
‘Typical homophobic behaviour,’ said Rannaldini dismissively.
‘Not a very intellectual Christmas for you, my dear. At least you can enjoy the sainted Taggie’s cooking.’
SIXTEEN
Helen arrived at Penscombe on Christmas Eve and hadn’t been in the house five minutes before Taggie realized what a dreadful mistake it had been to invite her.
She had put Helen in the most charming spare room, overlooking the lake and the valley and newly decorated with powder-blue walls, daffodil-yellow curtains and a violet-and-pink checked counterpane. Flames danced in the grate, and on the bedside table were a flowered tin of shortbread still warm from the oven and Christmas roses in a silver vase.
Helen immediately pointed out that Taggie was so lucky to be able to afford to redecorat
e and this was the room she’d so often slept in after fearful rows with Rupert. Then, when Taggie stammeringly offered to move her, Helen sighed that all Penscombe reminded her of how unhappy she had been.
Taggie was also desperately worried about Marcus, who had driven his mother over and who looked absolutely wretched, and was already getting on Rupert’s nerves.
‘Why does he keep saying “Oh, right,” when it plainly isn’t?’
Unlike Helen, who drooped about not helping at all, Marcus, despite his asthma exacerbated by Rupert’s dogs, insisted on carrying in endless baskets of logs, chopping onions until he cried, spending hours peeling potatoes, apples and, most fiddly of all, sweet chestnuts. In return, Taggie had had the ancient yellow toothed piano in the orange drawing-room tuned but every time Marcus tried to practise Rupert’s terriers started howling.
Marcus, in turn, was also desperately worried about Helen.
‘I’m sure she’s having a nervous breakdown,’ he confided to Taggie. ‘She won’t stop crying.’
He felt as ineffectual as the flakes of snow that were drifting down and losing themselves in the rain-drenched lawn and the gleaming wet paving stones.
‘They always say the first Christmas is the worst,’ said Taggie sympathetically.
What neither of them realized was that Helen was only suicidal because Rannaldini hadn’t been in touch since Prague — not a telephone call, not even a Christmas card. She was far too proud to tell anyone that he had dumped her after a one night stand, just because she was spending Christmas with his enemy.
Christmas Day was even more fraught. Among the guests at Penscombe was Rupert’s father, a merry old Lothario, just liberated from his fifth marriage.
Having opened and drunk all the miniature bottles in his stocking before breakfast, he spent the day plastered, pinching bottoms and calling Taggie and Helen by each other’s names.
Opening presents had also been a nightmare because Helen, who seemed to have been given so little, insisted on watching everyone else open their presents.
‘I’m honestly not interested in material possessions,’ she kept saying quite untruthfully.
She was in addition appalled that despite Marcus’s entreaties, Rupert had not used Christmas to slip her a large cheque or announce that in future he would be giving her an allowance.
Tabitha was also acting up dreadully. After two and a half years she still carried a torch for Lysander who with Kitty had been invited to Christmas dinner. She was insanely jealous that Xav and Bianca seemed to have been given many more presents than her.
Finally she was enraged because Rupert had only given her a new car, a dark green Golf convertible, for Christmas when she’d wanted a brilliant young event-horse called The Engineer. Rupert, however, had desisted because Tabitha had ploughed all her GSCE exams in the summer and because the asking price of twenty thousand pounds for the horse was too high.
This omission had triggered off a blazing row which was exacerbated by Tabitha’s refusal to come to Matins.
‘What have I got to thank God for?’ she shouted. ‘He hasn’t given me Lysander or The Engineer and I don’t know why you’re uptight about my GCSEs — your wife’s never passed an exam in her life.’ With that, she stormed out banging the door.
Unable to cope with his first wife at any time Rupert spent most of Christmas Day out of the house. Traditionally the grooms had the day off, so he used it as a marvellous excuse to escape with Lysander to the yard to do the horses.
He was in a twitchy mood anyway because there had been a lot of dropped telephone calls since yesterday. Rupert was only too aware of how beautiful and young his wife was, and he suspected Dr Benson’s handsome new partner and Kevin, the leftie social worker, who’d overseen Xav and Bianca’s adoption, of both being in love with her. Ghastly Kevin had even given Taggie a rose for Christmas which had been planted outside the back door, and which Rupert kicked every time he passed.
And now Kev had had the temerity to drop in — natch at drinks time — bringing Colombian wooden dolls for Xav and Bianca. He had been invited to stay on for smoked salmon and champagne by Taggie, desperate to provide Helen, very frosty from being called ‘Taggie’ and having her bottom pinched by Rupert’s father, with some intelligent conversation. Helen, who was now nose to nose on the sofa talking to Kevin about Nepalese folk music, winced in anticipation of the inevitable upheaval as Rupert swept in followed by Xavier and his usual pack of dogs.
Seeing Rupert’s bootfaced expression Kevin tried to humour him.
‘This little chap’s new,’ he said, pointing to an adorably floppy black labrador puppy with hooded tobacco-brown eyes and vast paws, who was romping with Rupert’s lurcher, Nimrod.
‘He’s mine,’ said Xav, joining both dogs on the floor. ‘Daddy gave him to me for Christmas. He’s called Bogotá.’
‘You never stop nagging me to find Xav a black friend, Kevin,’ drawled Rupert. ‘And now I have.’
‘I didn’t mean-’ began Kev, his Adam’s apple wobbling furiously.
‘Of course you didn’t,’ said Helen in outrage. ‘Why must you trivialize everything, Rupert? One simply cannot underestimate the importance of ethnic origins.’
‘Why aren’t you living in America then?’ snapped Rupert.
‘Rupert,’ said Taggie appalled, which gave Rupert the excuse he needed.
‘I know when I’m not wanted,’ he said and, gathering up Xav, stalked out of the house.
Running after him, but failing to catch him, Taggie returned to the drawing-room.
‘It’s so sad,’ Helen was saying to Kev, ‘that Rupert hasn’t got any easier over the years.’ Then, turning to Taggie, said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t cope with scenes like that, I’m going to lie down.’
There should have been eleven for dinner, five women and six men. As well as Lysander and Kitty, Taggie had invited Lysander’s father, David Hawkley, who, as a handsome widower and a headmaster, would have been perfect for Helen, but unable to face an English winter he had pushed off to Mykenos. Tab’s boyfriend, Damian, whom she tolerated as second best to Lysander, had taken umbrage, after being called a leftie yobbo by Rupert once too often, and ducked out as well. Then, after a mysterious telephone call this morning, Rupert’s father Eddie had asked if he could bring a woman friend, which meant they were two women extra.
Pre-dinner drinks were scheduled for seven-thirty. By seven o’clock Taggie had reached screaming pitch. The geese were sizzling enticingly, the Christmas pudding bubbling, the red cabbage, the celery purée, the crème de marron were warming gently in the left of the Aga and the potatoes cut round and as small as olives only needed frying very fast in clarified butter at the last moment.’
Bianca, however, had been given a maddening Christmas present — a cordless toy telephone which rang when she pressed a button and which everyone, particularly an increasingly jumpy Helen, kept mistaking for the real thing.
In addition, Taggie had been driven crackers all afternoon listening to the chatter of Mrs Bodkin, Rupert’s ancient housekeeper, who was more hindrance than help, and refereeing fights beween dogs and children. These had culminated in a screaming fit from Bianca, because a bored Nimrod had chewed the feet off Kevin’s Colombian doll. This had resulted in Taggie shouting at Bianca and dispatching a disapproving Mrs Bodkin to take her up to bed.
And Rupert wasn’t even here to write out the place names for her; it would be so humiliating if she spelt them all wrong in front of Helen. She couldn’t ask Marcus as he’d gone off to collect Flora, who, to Helen’s irritation, he had invited for moral support.
Taggie was panicking; she hadn’t even changed when there was a knock and a plump, smiling face came round the door.
‘Oh Kitty,’ said Taggie and burst into tears.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Kitty dumped brandy butter, winter fruit salad, apple sauce and mince pies down on the kitchen table.
‘Everything,’ sobbed Taggie. ‘Tab’s in a screaming st
rop. Rupert’s pushed off to the pub and I don’t think he’ll ever speak to me again for giving Ann-Marie Christmas week off and asking Helen to stay. And she’s been just awful. She hasn’t lifted a finger and can’t stop looking at everything and saying, “New picture, new carpet, new sofa,” and it’s years since she b-b-buggered off and Rupert and Lysander have worked so hard and done so well in the last two years, we’re entitled to have something new.’
Kitty patted Taggie’s heaving shoulders; she’d never seen her friend in such a state.
‘I’m sorry,’ sniffed Taggie. ‘And I’ve been vile to poor darling Bianca, and I haven’t said hallo to you, Arthur, are you having a nice Christmas?’
Arthur nodded. A blond, beaming bruiser just two and a quarter and capable of causing considerable havoc, he was clutching a toy trumpet. Having wriggled out of his blue duffle-coat, he was only interested in finding his hero, Xavier.
‘Xavier’s not back yet, darling,’ said Taggie. ‘He’s pushed off with his rotten father.’
‘Go and change,’ said Kitty soothingly. ‘Lysander’s gone to the pub to get some drink. He’ll bring Rupert back. I’ll take care of everything.’
‘If you could keep an eye on the goose and feed the dogs, and put out a bowl of puppy food for Xav’s puppy when he gets back. You do look nice,’ Taggie admired Kitty’s blue wool dress.
‘It’s a bit ’ot,’ admitted Kitty, ‘Lysander gave it to me. I’m ashamed we’ve had such a lovely day. Arfur and I didn’t get up till lunch-time and Lysander came back to bed after he and Rupert had done the ’orses, and you’ve been slaving away.’
Wearily Taggie climbed the stairs to Bianca’s bedroom where there was no lack of ethnic reminders. The yellow walls were covered with posters of Colombian countryside, sweeps of orchids, giant water-lilies and the lake where El Dorado’s gold was hidden which looked like a green yolk in a jagged grey eggshell of rock.
Bianca was never angry for long. Now, wearing new red pyjamas covered in reindeer, her dark curls tied on top of her head to keep them dry in the bath, she was bending over a doll’s pram putting her new footless doll to bed.
